Re: no tab key - auto completion - in bash

From the wealth of information you have provided, I have determined that it's because you're not hitting it hard enough.

If you feel that to be an incorrect diagnosis, maybe you could cough up a little more information. Distro? XFCE version? Bash version? 32- or 64-bit? Et cetera?

Or you could try pressing the tab key twice - that works for me (just checked and verified); perhaps it's seeing a single tab as just a tab and wants a "double-tab" (not to be confused with a double-tap, lol) to initiate the auto-complete routine, IDK.

[EDIT: Strange... I type ba, press the tab key, and have to press it a second time to get a list. But if I type ho, a single press of the tab key turns it into host - and then a second press gives me a list. That appears to be inconsistent behavior. I guess it's time for someone with considerably more brain cells than I have to step in (Toz?), because I've managed to confuse myself. Apologies.]Regards,MDM

Re: no tab key - auto completion - in bash

@fredsmit, make sure you have the bash-completion package installed and double-check that bash is currently your shell. In addition to what MDM has asked for, can you also provide an example?

@MountainDewManiac, as I understand it (and lets see if I can explain it), on the first press of the tab key, bash-completion completes to the point of choice, on the second press, it displays the list. For example, on my system, "ho" can potentially resolve to "hostid", "hostname", "hostnamectl". In all instances, the common part is "host", therefore, the first press will auto-complete to "host" (point of choice). The second press will display the list. In the case of "ba", the third letter differs ("bacman badblocks base64 basename bash bashbug"), therefore you are already at the point of choice and the first tab press will do nothing. The second will display the choices.

Re: no tab key - auto completion - in bash

xterm is a terminal emulator that ships with X window system (xorg). xfce4-terminal is the terminal emulator that ships with Xfce. Can you confirm which one you are using?

If it is xfce4-terminal, and the tab key is moving you to the next terminal tab, have a look at the menu. Next to the "Next Tab" and "Previous Tab" menu entries, is "tab" shown as the shortcut accelerator? If so, follow the instructions here to change that accelerator. I believe the defaults are Ctrl+PgUp for Previous and Ctrl+PgDn for Next.

Re: no tab key - auto completion - in bash

Re: no tab key - auto completion - in bash

ToZ wrote:

xterm is a terminal emulator that ships with X window system (xorg). xfce4-terminal is the terminal emulator that ships with Xfce. Can you confirm which one you are using?

If it is xfce4-terminal, and the tab key is moving you to the next terminal tab, have a look at the menu. Next to the "Next Tab" and "Previous Tab" menu entries, is "tab" shown as the shortcut accelerator? If so, follow the instructions here to change that accelerator. I believe the defaults are Ctrl+PgUp for Previous and Ctrl+PgDn for Next.

Re: no tab key - auto completion - in bash

I found this appearance stting . After I enabled that setting and closing the utility I don't see the behaviour changed..

After the setting is enabled, you need to also (as per a previous post):

2. With xfce4-terminal open, at least one extra tab enabled, and the menubar visible, hover your mouse over the "Previous tab" menu entry and press the backspace key (this should delete the shortcut).3. With the mouse still hovering over the "Previous tab" menu entry, press another menu shortcut (if you want one).4. Repeat for the "Next tab" menu entry.

Why is a terminal program doing what the window manager does .. changing focus using tab key. And why does the default behaviour have it turned on?

Under the "ab " pulldown for the terminal program.. the choices are shaded out.

2. With xfce4-terminal open, at least one extra tab enabled, and the menubar visible, hover your mouse over the "Previous tab" menu entry and press the backspace key (this should delete the shortcut).3. With the mouse still hovering over the "Previous tab" menu entry, press another menu shortcut (if you want one).4. Repeat for the "Next tab" menu entry.

None of this works; "Hovering " over the shaded "Previous Tab" does nothing;

It should now work. It does seem that for apt-get install it doesn't want to autocomplete, maybe so you don't install things you don't mean to and you have to know what application that you want to be installing, but it does work for installed applications. This is something that put me off a little too. There are a few thing tweaks you need to make to Xfce but all desktop environments are like that and I love how smooth Xfce is...